For much of American history, the hierarchy that privileged whites over all others was encoded in law. And while the end of legal segregation brought opportunity to many, the logic of white supremacy remained, manifesting itself in ways that were furtive, almost invisible. There were still moments of racial terror. But in the post–civil rights era—with its mantra of color blindness—racism was no longer believed to be an institutional reality. This was the larger fiction that all the smaller ones served.
